BimmerWorld Racing

Highs and Lows from the Kia 200

noreply@blogger.com (John Henry Capestro-Dubets) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 01:44:00 +0000

Coming into Homestead things were looking good for the BWR ST # 81 car. Prior to this the Exclusive Management team made a trip to Homestead to test with Skip Barber. Skip Barber feels like home to me because they taught me how to race. CEO Michael Duncalfe and Co-driver Gregory Liefooghe were there and we were teaming up to find the speed on the course. Greg had been to the track the year before with the CTSCC, so having him there to help me learn the track was awesome and extremely helpful. Also having my manager, Michael doing lead/follows was a very cool experience. With my two coaches, and the experienced staff of Skip Barber, I was bound to learn as much as possible. I also owe a special thanks to Thomas McGregor and Shelby Blackstock for running back to back lead/follows. Running laps is one thing, but to have two awesome teammates pushing you is another.

The time had come and once again I found myself in Florida walking through the Homestead paddock. Accompanied by my co-driver, we quickly got registered and made our way to the trailer, put our bags down, said hello to our team, and then we went to greet our chariot.

Before I knew it I was in the car about to roll out of pit lane for the promoter test day. The sessions went well but we knew we had some changes to make. With Greg and David Wagner hard at work, we were on our way to getting the setups dialed in.

For qualifying, we knew that we needed to be in a place with just enough of a gap that we could close in the draft with no traffic hold ups. We set out as a team with the sister car ST #80 piloted by Bill Heumann right behind me. We found the gap we needed but were unable to secure a time within the top ten.

Starting fourteenth was not what we planned, but now we had to stay focused and get the car in the top five. My job was to keep the car out of trouble and hand it off to Greg so he had a chance at the top five. The race started, or so I thought, but in reality it was a demolition derby. Cars were scattered all over the track and we had full course cautions one after another. During the race, we had a few little encounters ourselves but nothing serious, for the most part all the incidents seemed to be behind us. Slowly but surely I made my way up through the pack and found myself in the top ten, catching a car about every other lap.

In every sport luck plays a part and things were looking good for us. I was catching the Porsche Boxster in front of me and we had the fastest lap of the race up until our luck ran out. The car shut down on the way to turn 8 and I rolled off into the grass. Doing everything I could that was in my power, I kept trying to restart the car. Our race was over and my fastest lap was taken from me as well.

Shortly after being towed back to the paddock I was met by my co-driver Greg. We took some time to ourselves to regroup and rejoined the team in pit lane. We watched the end of the race and then walked with our head mechanic, Ryan Kuhn, to our wounded chariot. He explain to me what happened and showed both Greg and I what went wrong and that it was not our fault, just one of those misfortunes that happen. At first it was hard to grasp, but now it is what makes me motivated to show everyone at Barber that we are one of the best teams. We will review data and video and prepare for our next race. Looking forward to Barber. Thanks everyone for reading.

Barber 200

noreply@blogger.com (John Henry Capestro-Dubets) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:48:00 +0000

Barber was looking like a promising weekend. We had a rough race at Homestead and now needed to redeem ourselves. Once we arrived in Alabama we got straight to work talking about what we could do better to improve our chances of getting to the podium. The night before the promoter test day I sat in bed watching the Homestead videos over and over trying to find things that I could fix. My main goal was to minimize any mistakes I had been making inside the car; missed shifts and basic race craft.

Once at the track I was quickly getting back into the rhythm of a race weekend. Greg and I checked the car to confirm our seat had not moved; even though it's bolted in and we are the only ones that drive the car. Then we talked to our engineer to see what the new changes were for Barber. Before I knew it I found myself standing in pit lane waiting for my turn to hop in.

Shortly into our test day we found that something wasn't right with the car and same with the sister 80 ST car. We went back to the paddock before I even had a chance to do a single lap, but the BimmerWorld crew quickly got to work on putting the car back together knowing that ever bit of track time was extremely important. It was my first time at Barber and I needed the seat time.

With 15 minutes left in the second session the BimmerWorld crew got us back out there. Greg quickly did a couple laps then brought the car in for a driver change. Once in the car I felt awesome about the weekend and had a good feeling that we would do well at Barber. After testing was done we started fine tuning our set up so that we could prepare ourselves for the race.

Once qualifying rolled around we felt pretty good about where we were at with the set up. The last practice session before qualifying was cute short about five minutes in when a Camaro slammed into the guardrail. Even though we didn't have the time we need we somehow pulled it together. We sat in the pits and let everyone by so that we could get ourselves a nice gap with no slow traffic. Once it was clear I blasted out onto the track with my head down looking for that top 5 time. We didn't quite get there but got close enough with a P6 starting position, only .01 off P5. This was my best qualifying position yet, so I was very happy with the results considering it was a track I had never been to. Once back at the trailer I found my self surprised as the BimmerWorld crew, my mother and girlfriend were there to surprise me with a birthday cake for my birthday the day before. Thank you guys it was very cool!

Race day rolled around and I found my self on the outside lane waiting for the action to start. I knew that I had to get a good start so that I wouldn't get pushed out of turn one. We got the start we were looking for and quickly started making our way toward the front. Before I knew it we had made it to 4th and where right behind the Freedom Autosport Mx5 of Derek Whitis. We had a good battle going on and then I saw my chance to pass in turn 11. Very carefully we snuck by and made it to P3. Everything was looking good, there had only been one yellow and I had about ten to twenty mins left on my stint. Then in the same place where I had passed Whitis I was hit by the GS 50 of Rob Finlay, who I had watched coming up in the rearview feeling comfortable his experience would tell him there was no way to make the pass given his position - wrong. I spun out and landed in a gravel pit and now had to watch all the cars go by as I sat helplessly. This brought out another yellow and we were towed out. Finlay served a black flag for the incident but our race was now ruined - no real justice in racing.

After the incident Greg was out on track a lap down when more trouble struck. The car died on track due to a gremlin caused by the previous contact, bringing out another yellow and us getting towed back to the paddock where the crew quickly fixed the car and sent Greg back out. Once Greg was able to go back out he passed the 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st place car to get a lap back. This just goes to show that we had all the right ingredients but no luck! We finished the race in 23rd. We felt heart broken as we watched our chances to a championship get slimmer.

I just want to say that as a driver there is always something you can do better to be successful. I reviewed in car video a day or two after the race from Seth Thomas's car. I could have gotten out of the GS cars way and maybe lost one position, but he also could have not hit me. All I know is it would have been one heck of a show if the didn't happen. I'm looking forward to VIR, this is the BimmerWorld home track and the place I got my first track record at Skip Barber's MazdaSpeed challenge. Thanks for reading, Until next time John Henry Capestro-Du Bets.

The Roar Before the 24 To Daytona 200! By: John Henry Capestro-Dubets A.K.A JCD 1/29/2011

noreply@blogger.com (John Henry Capestro-Dubets) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:30:00 +0000

Coming into this I would like to say that I am new to Grand-Am and BimmerWorld. What a great team and awesome series to be in. The BimmerWorld Crew is one of the hardest working groups of guys I've ever met. I come from a small racing background and was lucky to be found by Exclusive Management Inc's Michael Duncalfe, who teamed me up with Gregory Liefooghe and the one and only BimmerWorld!

Coming into the Roar before the 24 I had only driven the BimmerWorld #81 ST car one time at a VIR test/tryout. The test went very well and I was invited to do the season with the team in 2011. Next thing I know I was landing in Orlando and driving to Daytona International Speedway. I had never been to Daytona before. When I first went through the tunnel under turn two and emerged in the infield I looked up at the banking with my jaw dropped… All I can say is it’s very humbling. I was very lucky because I was one of the first to drive the new surface that was very smooth and fast. We started the test with me learning the new dash that looked like a fighter jet cockpit! I quickly learned what buttons to push and which buttons not to push.

Once on the track it was straight to business, figuring out the car and how it responds to different circumstances such as braking, handling and how it would takes curbs. Next it came down to fine tuning the setup. I was very fortunate to be teamed up with Gregory Liefooghe, since I was the rookie all the setups felt great to me. I was
accustomed to a one set up car and just deal with it attitude. Greg quickly helped me to understand what we needed to work on and what we were ultimately looking for.

After a few sessions with Greg and David Wagner (our
ST engineer) to fine tune our setup we had a car that was ready to lay down some laps. Once feeling the car with a proper setup I was able to become very comfortable with the car and start to work on my driving! Once again Exclusive Managements Michael Duncalfe and Greg were able to get me up to speed to be competitive in our upcoming race in a few weeks.

After a couple long weeks of waiting I found myself back in action, but this time it was the real deal. The race week was now upon us. Greg and I headed to the track for our first drivers meeting and practice session. After spending the last week with the EM Inc. team preparing I can honestly say I have never felt so relaxed coming into a race weekend. The guys worked with me on every angle of what we needed to get done. After the meeting we headed out to find we still had some setup work to do. After a few turns of the wrenches led by Ryan Kuhn and his group of hard working mechanics we had a good race setup.

My first qualifying session began and we hit the track running. I found a few good drafts but found myself stuck in slower traffic. Another pack of cars was running together and we couldn’t seem to catch them. At the end of the session we found ourselves 7th out of 45. Not too bad for my first professional qualifying session, but could have been better.

It was finally here my first pro race! I was ready and could not wait for the green to drop. As soon as they cleared the fans walking I belted up and got a few last words of encouragement. I then dropped my visor and got in the zone. The engines started and we lined up, and before I knew it the green was out. Within a few laps I had made my way up to p3 before the first yellow came out. We lined up and did a few laps under caution then it was back underway. After battling with a Boxster for a few laps I earned my way up to p2 and found myself running after the APR car. The goal was to just stay in the top three and hand the car over to Greg in good condition and let him show his closing abilities. Then the APR car pitted, not the way I would have liked to earn p1 but still I was leading the race in my debut. Doesn’t get much better than that. After a few laps I was called into the pits under green, for my first driver change ever.

I came flying into the pits, without speeding and got out of the car like I was late for school. Greg hopped in and James Clay’s BWR crew
did their thing. Next thing I know Greg was back out there. He came out around p8 and made his way through the pack. With 20 minutes to go he was sitting p2 and another caution came out after a
BMW running in the top three hit the wall. Now we had a whole stack of cars behind us eager to sneak by us for a podium finish. The green fell and it was on again Greg was fighting a
transmission issue while trying to hold off the Kia. With a nice pass the Kia slipped by and we were in third with 8-6 minutes to go when out of nowhere another full course yellow! The race ended under caution and we had our first podium of the year at Daytona.

Greg and I met in pit lane and made our way to victory lane after talking to the press. We both stood there proudly as we represent EM Inc and BWR! This was the first time either of us had a podium finish in CTSCC. We held our trophy proudly and popped champagne. We look forward to Homestead and the rest of the 2011year in CTSCC!

MMP and the End of My Rookie Season, Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 18:21:00 +0000

Miller Motorsport Park has the best "natural" scenery of any of the tracks we visited this year.

For those of you who don't know how it turned out already, here is the short summary. We went into the race with a 19 point lead in the points standings with only one competitor able to catch us, #74 from Compass 360. On the second lap of the race, our differential failed. Miraculously, I was able to coast the car around to our pit box. The crew did an amazing job getting the diff swapped out in under 30 minutes and we finished the race P20. #74 was running in fourth for a while which would have still given us the championship but the MX5 running in 3rd place blew its' engine with about 20 minutes to go giving them the 3rd place finish. This made us tied for the championship in points but the tie breaker is then determined by number of first place finishes, then seconds, thirds, etc. We were tied based on first and second place finishes but with this third place finish, the #74 driven by Dave Thilenius and Lawson Aschenbach won the championship.

This picture is of James doing what everyone on the team that was not in, or under, a car did for about the last hour. "What and how can we pull this off?"

We knew going into this race that we didn't have the championship locked up and we tried to approach this race just like every other one of the season. Our goal for the entire season was to finish in the top ten for every race with an average of 6th place, which luckily we had been able to do. Even with this finish outside of the top 10, our average finishing position for the year was 5.1 while #74 averaged 5.7! We had four podiums which was comprised of two firsts and two seconds. Up until this race, our worst finish had been 6th place.

In addition, I won the Mesco Building for the Future Rookie of the Year award. I am very proud of this award but is somewhat bittersweet. It is one of, if not the only, individual award in the series. While I am very proud of the job I did this season as a rookie, the truth is that I wouldn't have won the award without the BimmerWorld Team and my stellar co-driver, Seth Thomas. This is truly a team sport and everybody on the team carries their load when you do well. Of course, any single screw up can ruin the race and it was a big effort on all of our parts to insure that I drove at a competitive level while not making a fatal rookie mistake in the process. In fairness it seems like the award should be to the team and called something like "The Proper Care and Feeding of the Rookie Award."

Although things didn't go as well for us at Miller Motorsport Park as we hoped, it added to the sense of pride I have for our team. The fact that they were able to get a diff swapped out that quickly under a hot race car, allowing us to stay in the race and retain a shot at the championship, is nothing short heroic. I think the real measure of a person's worth is how they handle adversity. The individuals that make up the BimmerWorld team have shown time and time again what they are made of under adversity. We fought as hard as possible up until the checkered flag of every race and in the end lost by the very smallest of margins imaginable.

As everyone has heard time and time again, "that's racing!"

Along this vein, I did want to make mention of the guys who won the championship. They are top drawer individuals and both great racers. They were always there to congratulate us and shake hands after our successes. Some of those times were after they suffered from their own bad luck. They raced clean and had superb strategy and support from the Compass 360 Team. No one likes to lose, but it is some consolation when it is to champions of this caliber.

With my rookie season in the CTSCC ending, it is interesting to reflect back on where I was at the beginning and how much I have grown during the season.

As a result of a lot of practice, coaching from Seth, and data analysis with Seth, Dave and James I have clearly become a better driver. It is clear that I still have a long way to go to be competitive in pure speed with the top drivers, but I closed the gap significantly and I know most of things I need to do (or not do) to fix it.

This picture looks like it shows us looking over data.... but from my expression it might be something from the Internet...... whatever the case, I am clearly thinking "I haven't ever seen THAT before!"

Another thing I have learned this season is that if you are going to put four drivers in a small space for a race weekend, you should have good ventilation!

I think the most significant growth for me as a driver was in the reliability department. For those of you who know me from club racing, this is a big accomplishment! I became much more solid behind the wheel. By the third race I was calm and cool during the race despite the jostling and pressure. I consistently was able to bring the car home in clean condition high enough on the lead lap that Seth could do his job. The biggest factor in becoming more solid was learning to let go of my mistakes (instead of dwelling on them) and focus on the immediate task at hand.

This picture is of #81 with Seth at the wheel going through/over "Bad Attitude."

Despite what happened in the last session, the last lap, or the last turn, what is in front of you has infinite possibilities. Those upcoming turns will be perfect. You will nail them and exit onto the straight faster than anyone has before.....

I have also learned to ignore that fact that all racers are "pathological optimists!"

This picture clearly shows that the "pot of gold" is somewhere between T5- T7.

The joy of racing well is a really big high and I am really grateful that I have gotten to taste it on occasion. Of course, the the addiction is something of a problem....

GP3R- Trois Rivieres , Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 19:46:00 +0000

I skipped writing about the NJMP race mostly because I didn't feel like writing about it. I was pretty down after that race. Even though we finished well enough, I was pretty unhappy with my performance there. The Friday crash that put me into the wall had broken some ribs. Upon inspection of the video, I could see the things I did wrong that helped cause the incident. It was a good lesson that it is smart to keep your mouth shut when you want to blame someone else for an incident, at least you get ALL of the facts. At any rate, all of that when coupled with the heat, my efforts to try to drive faster than the car could handle, and a plugged drink tube resulted in a poor drive on part. Fortunately the crew and Seth took up the slack for me.

After a month off, my ribs had mostly mended and with some help from my friends and family got my head screwed back on reasonably straight. I hope I don't get a repair bill for that one!

3R posed several challenges for BW as a team. To start with, James, Dave and I had never driven the course before. We got two practice sessions prior to the customary 15 minute qualifying session on Friday then we raced Saturday morning.

Another problem was that due to the unique configuration of the street course and limited space, the pits were not accessible from our paddock. After the second practice we, and several other teams, left our pit carts in the "unused area of pit lane" that we were we thought clearly directed to use if we didn't want to bring them back to the paddock. It seems like clarity was an error on where they were supposed to be though and we incurred a team penalty of 5 minutes deducted from our 15 minute qualifying session.

Another pressure was that the #81 needed to finish the race, preferably in the top ten. With no room for error, Seth and I needed to be fast but not make any mistakes. For me this meant that when qualifying came around I put down a 1:16.4. Even though my best time by a full second, it was only good enough for P14 out of field of about 20 cars. Dave, on the other hand blazed off with a 1:15.0 which earned him P2. He missed being P1 by .005 seconds! I think this may have been on purpose so he wouldn't have to endure any "pole sitter" jokes.

Starting on the outside worked well for me. I got my best start of the season and got a couple of cars in T1, a right turn. T2 and T3 are lefts with T3 being the famous, and oh so narrow, "Arch Turn" shown in this picture. These worked out well for me also and by the time we passed our wrecked #80 team car and #75 Honda, we were well into the top 10.

Here is a link to the in car video from #80

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvFtqC9n7_E&feature=player_embedded#!

From then on, I had a pretty solid race with some good lap times.

This picture gives an idea of the typical amount of run off room. This picture is the track out of T8 just before the brake zone for T9. I drove pretty well and put several laps around 1:16.2. I was able to pass the car off to Seth at a FCY. Somewhere in the top 10.

Our crew did a fantastic stop with fuel and right side tires in under 30 seconds and when he went back out he was P6. Seth drove as fast our car would allow without taking any chances and brought it home in fourth.

Here you can see that Seth really had a pretty easy race. He hardly looks like he broke a sweat....

oh yeah, we have a blog... -David White

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:53:00 +0000

At the beginning of the season, James asked me to blog about my rookie season and I told him "I'm on it". Even though I've never been much of a writer, I figured I would give it a shot since we thought it would be interesting for readers to "see" the experience through the eyes of someone making the jump from club racing to professional racing. I stayed somewhat on top of it through the first few race weekends but, as I'm sure most that know me expected, I've been way too slack about blogging since.

since my last entry:

VIR - I had never looked forward to a race as much as our race at VIR. It's my (and BimmerWorld's) home track and we would have plenty of friends there to cheer us on. Disaster struck early when our #80 car was taken out on the promoter test day (James covered that nicely in his blog entry so I'll skip the details). This was a crushing blow but we were fortunate enough to secure another car to use for the weekend thanks to our friends at RRT Racing.

I feel that we were very lucky to end up with a top 10 finish at VIR after losing our car in testing but I came away from that weekend very disappointed with my performance. I had my worst qualifying performance of the year so far (by a long shot) and a very mediocre race stint. Luckily, James was on it and with some solid pit strategy, we salvaged a decent finish. It was pretty amazing to see how hard the BimmerWorld crew worked to put both cars in the top 10!

Lime Rock - My first trip to LRP was in 2007 (before it was repaved) and it was a miserable experience. When I left, I said I'd never return...until 2010 apparently. My second trip there was an open test day where I drove my buddy Tyler's E36 328 ITR race car so I could re-learn the track. I came away from that test day really liking the track and looking forward to our CTSCC race there on memorial day weekend.

Our race weekend at LRP was a short one with no promoter test day so we had to work quickly to get the cars and drivers dialed in. Even with split classes, qualifying was hectic with 35+ cars on a 1.5 mile track for 15 minutes. I somehow found a decent gap and was able to qualify 5th, a few tenths off of the pole time. The next morning, the crew discovered a mechanical issue with the #80 car about an hour before the race and began thrashing to get it resolved. It's a sinking feeling when you're sitting in the car on jack stands as you watch the other cars go out for their recon laps before they take the grid. We missed the grid and lost our 5th place starting position but there was still time to make the start. The crew got me on my way during the formation laps and I had to quickly make my way to pit lane which is no easy task on race day since the paddock is crowded with fans. I make it to the end of pit lane in time for the start and I begin working my way forward from 35th place and pit from 15th place to hand the car over to James. James was forced to pit under green to replace a cut tire and we ended up a lap down. Another race for us where the result did not match the performance. Bill and Seth ran an awesome race giving BimmerWorld it's first CTSCC win!!

Watkins Glen - Our WGI race was the very next weekend but at least we were back to a "normal" schedule with plenty of test/practice time to dial the cars and drivers in. We are very optimistic that this race will be a good one for us since fast, sweeping tracks like WGI really suit our cars and the cars have been getting better each time we drive them. We have a great showing in qualifying and up with 2nd and 4th place spots on the starting grid.

I got a great start and ran strong in the opening laps but I was too focused on getting by the leader instead of running my race and conserving my tires so I started tumbling down the order. I think I pitted from 10th to hand the car over to James. Valuable lesson learned - focus on running smooth, consistent laps and don't worry so much about leading early on. I think my teammates have covered what transpired at WGI causing us to miss out on possible podium finishes, so I'll defer to their blog posts.

Mid-Ohio - Ready to redeem myself from my poor showing during my WGI race stint, I was focused on running smooth and consistent laps at Mid-Ohio. Our cars were pretty dialed in from the beginning of the weekend which made life easy for us. I was happy with my lap times and consistency right out of the box but found a few areas that needed some improvement. We spent most of the test day experimenting with very small setup tweaks and I made sure I was on pace.

Time for qualifying - Bill and I go out together and found a pretty decent gap. My first lap is a good one until i have a nice drift through the carousel...oops. Still a good lap and fast enough to put me in P1, briefly. Another car edges me out by less than a tenth of a second so I give it another go, focusing on being smooth and hitting all my marks. I dropped a couple of tenths on that lap and secured my second pole position of the season! I won't lie, it's a pretty big deal to me and worth all of the ensuing "pole" jokes...

Race day - One more short practice before the race allows us to make sure we're happy with our race setup. I think this might be the first time that everyone on the team has agreed on something - good sign! Mid-Ohio is a very tough track to pass on so I know I need to get a good start, then put my head down and click off some good laps to stay in front. I do just that and take the lead for the first 16 laps until I somehow managed to cut the main fuel pump off as I'm downshifting in to 3rd gear for the entrance to Thunder Valley. The car bogged down, I wondered if the motor had just let go, pulled to the right to avoid getting hit, noticed the low fuel pressure alarm on the dash so I turned on the spare fuel pump and the car came back to life. This all transpired in under 4 seconds and luckily, I only lost one position. While the situation sucked, it could have been much worse. I put my head back down and worked on reeling in the new leader. I caught him and made a few attempts to pass but was unable to get by before I got the call to pit for fuel, tires, and driver change. James ran a solid stint against some tough competition and we finished 4th. Congrats to Bill and Seth for picking up their 2nd win of the season! Great work everyone!

So there you have it - plenty of highs and lows packed in to 4 race weekends. This month has been a crazy one with 3 races in 4 weeks and a few other trips to race tracks sprinkled in. Going forward, I hope to be more "on it" with the blog updates...but I guess we'll have to wait and see how that pans out.

The End of a Driving Slump - James Clay

noreply@blogger.com (Admin) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 21:52:00 +0000

It comes as no surprise to a lot of my friends that the last month+ has been a little tense for me. On the surface, being the owner of a team in a new series is always a little intense for a while - compound that normal circumstance with the additional pressure of a 3 race run in 4 weekends - little room for error.

Now add the non-standard stuff that piles right on top. First Watkins Glen. Great weekend for us, all except the results. I have kept my mouth mostly shut, since running it at this point does nothing positive.

But without any shadow of a doubt, we had a couple of podiums in the bag in NY and an error by "not our personnel" yanked it out of our grasp. We managed a couple of top 10s out of it, but no one on Team BimmerWorld was happy. Seeing the TV show didn't make us any happier since in the Watkins situation, we were unfortunately severely aware and without being asked, a few folks felt inclined to theorize that we were clueless. Final word to all the blog readers - we know the rules and unfortunately make every effort to follow them... Anyway, this has been on my mind as a secondary stress point - or tertiary or wherever it falls - I am losing count.

First and foremost on my mind - my personal time behind the wheel has been a major disappointment for a few races. Others rely on me to get a job done and while I feel my strongest and maybe more unique skill is setup and I have been knocking that out, I can wheel the car and usually do so to a good finish. Our team doesn't work as hard as they do to watch cars go around track - they invest a supreme amount of effort and the payoff is a result - a good one. My co-driver has been a standout in his first-stint efforts, putting the 80 on pole once before this past weekend, otherwise typically close to the front, and then handing me a solid car.

Cue the designated hitter. Not for setup or tuning, but to bring home the finish - the final result of all that work. The season has been a little rocky, full of bad things happening to good people as my friend Jim Robinson of DTOM Racing fame would say - in a weak moment when he was being nice.

R1 - Daytona - strong start leading to strong finish, P5 headed up, SLAMMED in the back on a restart by a car that lost its braking ability...end of race
R2 - Homestead - strong start, first timing tower error puts us back, making up ground, hit and spun, recover, ANOTHER timing tower error makes us look silly, still manage a decent top 10
R3 - Barber - a little short to be a great track, but we can put down one lap, which DW does, putting us on the pole. A setup experiment we attempted plays out awesome in qualifying,poorly in the race, car fades, P6 finish. Still decent with the footnote - "for what it was"
R4 - VIR - Home track, cars progressing, an insanely stupid move by a new driver in the faster GS class puts me in the wall with major damage before the weekend even really starts. Find a spare car, awesome race strategy, salvage a 6th. Good result *for what it was...

Starting to see a trend? Well you're not alone. Too many footnotes.

R5 - Lime Rock - hitters slump has set in. Everything else going well, but I can't make anything happen when I strap in the CTC cars. Wildly frustrating and I won't know why until Mid Ohio, but in the meantime, I have a good race going headed for a higher top 10 (still fails to meet my expectations because there are no footnotes this time) and I force an issue in braking, cut a tire, lose a lap. Poor finish at the start of a 3 race stretch, James is grumpy.
R6 - Watkins - enough said on the obvious. The good news for me is I am driving well enough, but something still isn't right and while we seem to be headed for a top 5 before disaster strikes, still not up to expectations.

So now we are facing round 7. Why do bad things happen to good people? Keep in mind that by the law of averages, for every Jimmy Johnson that is having a horseshoe stuck season, there is one of us filling in as James Clay, taking the licks, not getting the finishes. And the more it happens, the worse it is. Thus the mid-season slump.

So it's Mid Ohio time. I get good sleep. I put away the normal BimmerWorld work early on Wednesday, and I focus on racing. I have spent a week pouring through data and I have asked our engineer Wayne to do the same thing, and we think we have found something. I approach the weekend like nothing has been amiss and plan to win the race. This is the test of positive thinking and hard work. Study hard but not too hard. Recognize mistakes but don't dwell on them. Focus on winning without putting too much pressure to get there. A driver's ego is a fragile thing and I have done this routine before, but not for myself.

The cars are good off the trailer. Minimum setup work required - instead we work on specific qualifying and race setups. I am also on out of the trailer. Take the positive reinforcement, study data but don't dwell. Learn and move forward. It is all working and by race time, we are ready to win. David goes out and kills it. I get the car in P2 but we lose a few out of the pits. Our strategy puts us at the back of the field to work up, but unfortunately for me, the traffic Seth cleared as single cars after the restart has now bunched behind the slower of the group and now instead of passing one at a time, I get caught up big having to work a group of 5 that is fanning out in all the braking zones. We move up, go for a final fuel stop under green, and keep working. Another yellow, we have passed more cars, some in front of us pit. More laps and Seth is leading, I am P3 and
working hard to get around a VW who is about as wide under braking where I have the advantage as the group of 5 I worked through earlier. Another caution, my gap behind is lost and a restart with the GS cars (who are slower on the back half) and the fading grip in T1 take their toll and I lose a spot to finish P4.

End result - team wrapped up the 3 race rush leading the points, the 80 car doesn't reach its potential once again due to an outside variable but this time that means one away from a podium. And more importantly to me, my slump is over! It has been a discouraging time and unrewarded efforts were getting old, but no one makes positive progress by burying their head in the sand. It is good to be back!

The reward - this blog entry was written entirely in my time waiting in line for the next coaster at Cedar Point. Next time I am looking for a top step for the effort.

Mid Ohio- Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 18:54:00 +0000

Everyone expects you to do well at your "home" track but there are some aspects of being at a familiar track that made this weekend more of a challenge for me than some of the others. First, a little definition of home track. Mid Ohio happens to be the closest big boy track to home at about 5 hours away. I had about 13 events at Mid O including my first race, a bunch of successes, and some miserable experiences including wrecks and blown engines.

For me, Mid O is one of the most fun tracks to drive but it is a very hard track to be really good at. There are so many tricks that local knowledge is definitely an advantage. Having said that, many of the guys in the paddock had lots of experience there also. In addition, I have gotten to the point where frequently the difference between me and the fastest laps put down by my team mates is the result of small bad habits that have become part of my driving style. With Seth's coaching I am aware of these and I am working hard to stop doing them. When trying to break a bad habit though, I have discovered that muscle memory is not your friend!

Our cars were set up great right out of the box and there was nothing for us to do except very minor shock adjustments. Between our engineer, Wayne Yawn, the drivers and crew we got the handling of these cars dialed in pretty quickly. Dave, James and Seth were pretty much knocking off good laps from the beginning and working on trimming off a few tenths.

James was really on his game all weekend. This picture was actually shot at breakfast...... Thursday morning.

Despite my home track "advantage," I was struggling through the practice sessions on Thursday and Friday morning and lagging over a second off the right pace. I was driving decently in the last practice session before qualifying although I didn't get any clean laps and the lap times didn't show the improvement.

Between the practice and quali we had one of the humorous interludes of the weekend. Crystal Mueller brought her beautiful daughters Crystin and Solei to the race and they were introduced to the way the pros behave when James and Dave took them along to get coffee and donuts. Along the way they found raccoon road kill. Showing that they had the appropriate parental skill set for a Father's Day weekend, they let the girls get out, touch, and photograph the deceased! I suspect this was the high point of the race weekend for the girls despite their Mom's displeasure. I just wish I had had thought of doing that when my kids were young but at least it didn't stop Sean (24) and me from stopping on the way out to dinner that night to look for the raccoon!

For the 15 minute single class qualifying session, we used the successful strategy we used at WGI. That is, we held both cars until the field had left the pits then both Dave and I went out in an empty section of track with me following him. Dave is an all around awesome driver but amongst all that awesomeness, his performance in qualifying is towards the top of the list. It helped me at WGI to use Dave as the rabbit....... and the tow from his draft doesn't hurt either!

It helped and I put down my fast lap of the weekend with a 1:37.9. I was unable to beat that and it was subsequently good enough for a respectable P7. Dave put down a great lap despite a little bobble in Carousel which was good enough for P1 initially, but he was shortly bumped to P2. He then went on another flier and got a 1:37.1 which held as P1.

Although the forecast and skies threatened rain Saturday morning, it all went South of us and it was clear, and hot, when race time came around.

This picture shows Dave leading the pack through T1. This picture was probably lap 1 or 2 since everyone is still pretty tight. He led for 16 laps or so.....

Although you don't see #81 in the picture I had my best start in the series and got past one or two cars in T7 and Madness.

There were quite a few FCY, due mostly to cars in the gravel traps. My racing continued to get better and I was pleased with the improvement I made in getting focused in a race environment, hitting my marks, correcting on mistakes from the prior lap, and adapting to changing conditions. I wasn't the fastest guy on the track but I was running a consistent pace that kept us top 10. My race craft got a little better also and I defended my position better than I had previously. My biggest mistake of the race occurred when I didn't drive a defensive line out of T1 up to the Key Hole. A Cobalt got inside me at the braking zone. I thought "no big deal" as I would hold him tight on entry then make an "over-under" move on the back straight. The problem was that I got a better run on him than I was expecting and was so close that I ended up pushing him ahead 20',.... and me back 10'! When I brought the car in we were at P5 and the car was running great.

We pitted both cars when a FCY came out at about the 50 minute mark. This put us on a two stop strategy as we would need an additional splash of fuel to finish the race. Our main competitors at Compass 360 were doing the same. James and Seth both went out and started nailing it. They showed why they are top guns in the pro circuit as well as why we love the E90 BMW. Neither put down the fastest laps of the race, but they put down fast lap after fast lap. Our cars are so solid and predictable throughout the race that they are a driver's dream. Our Performance Friction brake systems not only allowed us to out brake our competition, but to do it from start to finish without any fade.

For those of you who think Seth is a nice guy, this is how he looks just BEFORE he gets into the car! It really isn't a good idea to get in his way. Anyone who has raced him... or watched our driver change routine will know what I am talking about!

(of course it may be possible he is po'd because he doesn't think I am coming down pit lane fast enough.)

Seth will have to give the blow by blow account from inside #81 but from the outside he made it look easy. The only really tense moment I had when Seth was driving was when the #171 VW driven by Josh Hurley punted us in the brake zone for Carousel with one lap to go. Seth had been holding a pretty good gap of 3-4 seconds on Josh until a final FCY bunched the cars up again. As it turns out, Josh was slammed in the rear by a GS car which knocked him into us. Seth was able to maintain control and go on to take the checkered flag. Josh made a point of talking to Seth shortly after the race and set things right.

It looked like we would get both cars on the podium this weekend but the traffic and the final FCY conspired to finish #80 with an impressive season best (so far) P4 .

The results of this weekend put BW in the lead in the season championships by one point. It isn't much of a lead so far but we are happy for the moment. We have good momentum and confidence leading into the the final three races of the season.

The biggest take away for me for the weekend is that race at the top of your game you have to be prepared both mentally and physically. To achieve this, BimmerWorld drivers have learned that ice cream really helps. Fortunately at WGI and Mid O we had good ice cream close at hand. For round 8 at NJMP, I sure hope Flipper's Custard is decent!

Watkins Glen- Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 12:56:00 +0000

This is a hard blog update to write. I have found that sometimes it gets a little depressing two or three days after a race where you have done well. I think this is mostly caused by the adjustment and let down of going back to the non race world where no one knows, or cares, what you did the prior weekend!

As I write this, I can say with absolute certainty that it is better to suffer the post race let down from a success, than waking up at 6 AM the morning after a race still angry and feeling like the race was stolen from us.

The weekend was rock solid from all aspects that we could control. The team only had a few days to get the cars repaired and prepped after our victory at Lime Rock last weekend. Fortunately, there was only regular maintenance and cosmetic body work to repair so our guys were all over it and the cars were clean and ready to go by the time we got to WGI on Thursday.

We had three scheduled practice sessions on Thursday and two on Friday but almost all of the sessions were cut short due to sessions being black flagged to deal with wrecks.

Despite this, we got enough track time to get the cars set up well and learn our lines. Dave went straight out and put down our team best time of the weekend and was able to qualify P2. I got P5, my best qualifying position of the season so far. It felt great to finally run at the front pace in this series.

The race start was clean and Dave and I got to down to racing. I was slow to get my lap times down to where they needed to be and dropped a few spots in the first couple of laps. Hearing Seth's voice in my head (imaginary...not on the radio!) I got my eyes up and started hitting my marks and began putting down some pretty good lap times. This was good enough to keep me running around P9-P10. When there was a full course yellow at 50 minutes, Dave and I came in nose to tail, from those spots.

Both cars had great pit stops with fuel, tires and driver change. About 20 minutes later, we did a "splash and go" to get enough fuel to finish the race. Almost immediately after our cars were back out, an accident occurred resulting in a FCY which was golden for us.... we thought. Our resulting positions were about P5 and P6 of the cars that had pitted and had enough fuel to finish the race..... until race control started the "waive by" process.

The waive by is where all of the cars between the last GS race leader and the current ST race leader are waived by the pace car so as to not go a lap down from the ST field being split by the GS cars. In error, they did not call our cars to be waived by although they got all of the other team cars that were in the same position. We protested this but they let the decision stand resulting in 80 and 81 being almost the last cars in the race.... and a lap down! James and Seth did a great job to recover from this mentally and got back to racing. After about 30 minutes of green flag racing there was a FCY called for debris clean up and race control recognized their mistake and told our cars to go around the pace car. This put us on the lead lap, but at about P20 and P21 with 30 minutes to go.

James and Seth really put their heads down and started cutting through the field. They had great drives and showed why they are top pro drivers.

This picture shows how closely we can work together when it's race time....

Unfortunately there wasn't enough time left on the clock. Another accident caused a FCY at about 8 minutes to go and the race ended under yellow. James had gotten up to P9 and Seth P6.

At this point we are all trying to be philosophical about it and keep our focus positive but it is very difficult. With the lap times and track position we had, we felt we would have ended up with two podiums if not for race control making what we think was an honest, but catastrophic, mistake.

This picture taken towards the end of the race of #81 Car Chief, Ryan Kuhn, pretty much says it all.

Enough of the "coulda, shoulda, woulda" it is time to focus on Mid Ohio where we need to do well if we are to retain our chance of a championship.

Lime Rock Park - Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:45:00 +0000

Wow! Seriously, Wow!

The super condensed LRP weekend schedule is over and I am trying to get caught up at home before heading out to WGI tomorrow so this will be a little more brief than usual.

First, how does it feel to get on top of the podium? Well, it feels great! Next to seeing my kids make a major achievement, life just doesn't hand out too many better experiences than this.

The race started a little auspiciously as #80 was suffering from a drive train issue which required a transmission swap that morning. This resulted in Dave missing the grid but JUST making the start from the back as the field rolled. Furthermore, it started raining just as the last race ended and we started the pre race fan walk for our race. One of the great things about racing on a team at this level is that none of this really has anything to do with me. What this means, is that I am not really responsible for deciding much of anything or doing anything but drive. The key is let all the other guys deal with these issues and keep your head clear and focused. I don't have to worry about whether we should run rain tires or slicks. Or if we are going to run rain tires, how they are going to get put on with 10 minutes to go to race time. I just focus on my job. "We" decided to stick with slicks.

As it turns out, the rain stopped by the start of the race and while the track was pretty wet, there was some grip on slicks and within about 5 laps there was a good dry line. I dropped a couple spots in the first few laps to fwd cars but managed to stay running at about 12th with the leaders in sight.

Pit strategy including driver change and fuel was really critical to our success since LRP is so short that you can easily go a lap down if you pit under green flag racing. Our strategy was to make sure we got fuel and the driver change done under a full course yellow. We had a FCY at about 10-15 minutes into the race but this was simply too early to do us any good.

At about the 40 minute mark one of the RX8's ran off hard into the tire wall outside of T4 which brought out another FCY. Dave and I were called in at that point for driver changes which went flawlessly again with help from our crew partners at CMA Racing. For #81 the rest of the race was pretty much what we have seen consistently this year from Seth. He gets in the car and puts down fast lap after fast lap. While two or three other cars had turned some 59s lap times in the race, it usually was one golden lap. Seth turned a bunch of 59's and lots of low 60s laps. For those of us who have been watching Seth grow over the years as a driver, it is great to see his performance. He has been really fast for a long time but in the last two years he has developed the ability to run at top speeds without a bobble. He is like Iceman,... but with a friendly Southern smile!

He worked himself up to second place after a fairly long battle to get around Andy Lally in one of the Kias with a gutsy pass around the outside of T3. The gap to the leader, Lawson Aschenbach in a Compass 360 Honda though was still about 2 seconds and the clock was ticking down. Seth kept closing the gap by about .2s a lap when Lally went off big at T1 causing the safety car to come out. The race went green again with about 9 minutes to go. At about the 5 minute mark, Seth got around Lawson at T1 by virtue of our superior braking (thanks PFC!) and Seth's presumably large gonads.

The only weird aspect of this weekend was our surprise when we found that the Champagne we sprayed and drank was non alcoholic. What is up with that?

Thanks to Duncan Burke and Trevor Hilliar for helping with support their JP for a practice day at LRP. Thanks to the Lime Rock Park Club for all of their support and hospitality. They are super friendly cordial group and I hope to get up there to run with them more during the year.

Thanks to Tyler Munroe for cooking for us all weekend. It was great!

VIR - The Wreck Video and Ponderings - James Clay

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Sat, 01 May 2010 01:54:00 +0000

My last blog entry was uncharacteristically long. Well maybe not really - when I am passionate about a subject, I will take the time. And apparently when I need to vent as well - anyway, this one will be short. First, the good stuff - here is the in-car from the Thursday test day (refrained from all caps this time!). The camera blacked out but I didn't - apparently when it hit, the nose went straight up in the ar, it spun 180 on the trunk or remains thereof, and landed on the other side of the tirewall. But leading up to that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B61eWLoCv4

Now this is a real eye-opener for me. Two years ago, my friends at Grassroots Motorsports put on an event called the ultimate track car challenge. And while the E36 Uberwagon isn't really a track car, it is pretty sick and it will get up and go. Granted though you are going in what is otherwise a very stealthy street car with stock M3 seats and 3-point belts.

In 2008, I was giddy when we were testing the newly-built wagon for the event and we had to add a roof spoiler to keep the car from spinning at 150+ on the bump at start-finish on the VIR front "straight". In 2009, when everything was dialed in better and we were running the Full Course so we could stretch our legs, I was looking down watching my passenger hold a camera on the gauge cluster as we tickled 170 on the back straight, with street tires and pads. This was down the hill that Joey Hand was lifting for at a mere 160 in the McLaren racecar...

In early 2010 I had already decided after seeing a couple of accidents where people were injured last year that the wagon was no longer a track car unless it had a bar, seats and a cage - too fast (what??). But the GRM UTCC was coming back to VIR full this summer and with full slicks, race pads, and the extra fuel pumping so we can now hit closer to 700RWHP, I was thinking that a 180MPH wagon might just be the very cool answer to Mr. Riley's "track car" that was a DP equivalent. Just to try one more time.

But, apparently my wreck in the BimmerWorld/GearWrench E90 racecar last weekend did knock something loose - a little shred of common sense, or self-preservation, or whatever you want to call it. Racing is not about pure adrenaline and driving all out - it is a very calculated chess game taking place at a rapid pace with some significant consequences. Constant risk/reward evaluation. And while it is important to take chances, they are calculated risks.

ST cars are NOT terribly fast racecars. I was only going about 100 at the point I was hit pre-wall contact, and I have been through that section at over 135. Damage is logrithmic, as are all after effects. mv squared... So a very solid hit, but at a relatively tame speed, and in a car that has not only the latest generation of crash technology from the folks at BMW, but also a fully integrated rollcage, RaceTech head restraint seat, dual side nets, windown net, fire system, and a fuel cell (which somehow held every drop even though it looked like Tommy Boy's suitcase - thanks ATL!). And I felt pretty lucky to be up and around after it, let alone racing the following day.

So as I was cruising home in the wagon yesterday, spinning the tires whenever the boost slammed in, I was thinking about all of these things. And the risk is just not worth the reward. No cage, no UTCC in the wagon. Stupid things happen and while I feel very good about my equipment and level of prep, you never know when the nose of optimism will poke into your rear wheel and take it all away in an instant leaving a really bad mark. I am thankful to have been in the car I was last weekend for a big one!

Now, onto a couple of quick notes on the remainder of the VIR weekend:
-Our crew was awesome. These guys worked non-stop this past weekend and while the drivers had their work cut out, the crew can be thanked for the huge effort and the result.
-Does a big wreck shake you? Yes, but you have to get back on the horse. I went 2-wide in the race with the race-leading GS-car (it can be done!) and appropriately slammed the door on one of my fellow ST cars. Quick risk/reward calculation, act, repeat.
-We had a ton of fans in for the race on Saturday. THANK YOU! That is the reason we do it and it is great to talk to everyone and see the support!

6-hour kart race next Saturday, at the Glen the following Mon/Tue, more karting the next weekend, Road ATL with Chin Motorsports, some testing, then we race Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend at Lime Rock. Never a dull moment!

Thats it, more long-winded than planned, but it will do.

Rotten Lemons to Lemon Aide at VIR - Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:18:00 +0000

James has already posted a recap of the incident that wrecked the #80 car. But he really didn't do it justice. One of the big things he left out was what we saw on the in-car video.

Within 2 seconds of the car coming to rest from a very violent hit with a tire wall, then an airborne pirouette, James was on the radio informing the crew that the car was wrecked and out of commission. Seriously, 2 seconds! It's on video. We think he must have been keying the mic while the car was in the air! Within 1 minute, he was telling Dave to get on the phone with our friends at RRT Racing and see if we could use their car (they were not racing at this event).

Keep in mind, the hit from the incident was about as hard as it gets. It was probably 100 MPH or so at point of impact into the tire wall. The tire wall did it's job and absorbed some energy but there was enough to launch the car into the air in a rather nice (from a spectator's perspective not James') spiral form.

By the time James cleared medical, got back to the paddock, and took a couple Aleve, he was back to his smiling relaxed self. The man has incredible composure!

For me it was a clear example of why BimmerWorld is such a great company. When the owner has that kind of presence of mind and style under pressure, you can be confident they will do the right thing in business.... under any circumstance. Of course, for those of us that are James Clay fans, you know his party tricks are also pretty impressive.... but I'm not telling any of those stories...this time!

Thanks to help of Barry Battle and Michael Dayton, RRT got their car to us Thursday night and our crew jumped on getting the car prepped and through tech as a re-badged #80 BimmerWorld Team car. If the story had ended there, it would be impressive enough but the crew and drivers continued to perform under pressure. Our day Friday had only two practice sessions, then qualifying. Since the car was new to us, Dave and James had very little time to test, tune and get comfortable with the car. When Dave qualified the car, he had about 10 minutes of prior seat time. As is his norm, Dave was cool under pressure and drove the car right to the limit.

The team decided that night that we needed to move some parts from the wrecked #80 to the new #80 so the crew was at the track early and worked like crazy from sometime early (e.g. about 3 hours before us Pro drivers get our first Starbucks macchiato ). The changes were fairly dramatic and there was no practice prior to race start so Dave and James' jobs were simply to go race in a car they really hadn't driven before. I'll let them tell the story of their race but to end in 6th with that much crap piled on their heads is a real testament to the mental toughness of the drivers, great strategy and engineering by our engineer Wayne, and flawless performance from the crew.

So what was the race weekend like for #81.........

What a weird freaky weekend, even when compared to other race weekends, which tend to be pretty freaky and weird! Fortunately most of the weird stuff was happening around us and not to us so our biggest challenge was not to get distracted or too entertained by all the stuff going on.

Before giving a brief race recap here is a summary of some of the other stuff;

- A guy talking on his cell phone as he was walking through the paddock didn't see our lift gate coming down to load #80 on the trailer and walked right into the aluminum ramp. He immediately fell to the ground semi conscience with blooded pouring from what was a multiple stitch wound.

- We met two families worth of really nice fans when we were scouting the track. They invited us up to the roof of their camper to watch the track at Oak Tree. Jason Crist showed that he can make himself right at home under any circumstance... but that is his story. They made a point of coming down from South paddock after the race to get more autographs

- On the race day morning we got a pict from Seth's wife, Resa, showing a car upside down in the courtyard of the Courtyard. I guess it is good thing there was actually a courtyard or the car probably would have ended up in my room. In another strange twist, the car was NOT piloted there by James Clay. (see the picture of the car on it's roof and read Seth's blog here..(http://www.seththomas.net/blog/)

- Seth's Dad, the famous Bobby T, discovered a good restaurant in Danville! Unfortunately, I don't feel like I can tell anyone else the name of it since it was pretty crowded and I want to be sure there is room for me next time I visit VIR..

ok.... Joe and Mimma's Italian Restaurant, ‎3336 Riverside Drive, Danville, VA 24541(434) 799-5763‎

- We had great food at the track courtesy of James' Mom and Dad, Kendall and Barbara Clay! Thank you. I can't say I am sorry to miss out on Chic Fillet!

So on with the race summary....

I had qualified P20 despite putting down my best lap of the weekend in qualifying at about 1 second faster than I had made it around previously.

This picture is right after the start of the race so you get an idea of where Dave (#80 just behind and inside of me) and I started.

The race was pretty clean in the beginning with a little bit of paint swapping and a few minor offs (by others!). At about the 45 minute there was a FCY but it was way to early to pit if we were going to make to the end with a one stop strategy. Dave and I kept plugging away after the track went green. It wasn't long until a fairly major incident occurred at about the 1 hour mark. This involved three cars and as I understand it, one driver broke some ribs. This resulted in another major FCY at about the one hour mark. We pitted both cars simultaneously again but in the 1 1/2 weeks between Barber and this race, James had put together the equipment and a partnership with CMA Racing to help us crew when we needed to do two cars at once. This worked beautifully with fast stops for both cars. The crews were awesome and both cars maintained good track position. The result was that we were somewhere top 10 when I brought the car in and Seth got back out in the top 10, with several cars yet to pit.

In this picture we have passed a GS class Mazda RX8. You can't see in this picture how messed up the rear of the car is from a prior collision!

Our engineer, Wayne Yawn, figured the cars had enough fuel to make it to the end of the race.... barely. Seth and James began working further up through the field. Seth got up to third then had to give the position back to the APR VW after a brush with a GS car. He quickly regained third behind two Compass 360 Hondas (they had pitted at the first FCY at 45 minutes) that were running as train to try and conserve fuel and build up a gap from the rest of the field. They may have conserved fuel, but they didn't gap Seth! In fact he was reeling them in at about .5 - .75 seconds a lap. With about 7 minutes of racing to go, one of the Compass 360 cars needed fuel and had to pit which dropped them into 4th. With one lap to go, our car starved for fuel in T1 and Seth knew he had to limp the car around the track. When he made it to Hogpen, he knew he could make it to the finish line...which he did....just barely. He immediately shut the car down in the field past Start/Finish and got towed back to impound.

Of course, he managed to get himself back to the winner's circle for a little Champagne!

Its Hard To Go Home - James Clay

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 02:13:00 +0000

VIR. The beautifully paved track nestled in the rolling hills of Southern VA. A real track from back in the day - not a conjured road course like so many new tracks. Rhythm, flow, speed, staffed with good friends, and its just 2 hours from the BimmerWorld HQ. Our home track is a good one. This is the most anticipated weekend on our schedule all season, and for some reason it could hardly be going worse.

Test day is a day to ...test. Not bang up equipment - test. Not make low percentage moves - test. There is a saying in racing - "you can't win practice". But you can test. So we showed up to VIR with some new work on the cars. To test.

As expected, we don't bat 1,000 and not all of our stuff was working as we wanted. Most but not all, so it was time to change back to our tried and true. Because we were testing. Making laps and learning. Not taking stupid chances. We had done some crafty camera work on the last session on the 81 car, but we decided to send my car out as well to verify our thoughts - it was going to take a long time to set the cars up again, so we would otherwise sit out and we wanted to make sure we learned as much as possible.

Everything was going well. I had a setup problem and it was behaving as expected. If we COULDN'T solve it and we had to deal with it, we were making progress on making it drivable.

Our cars exit turn 4 and are flat on the throttle all the way to turn 10 - there is a short straight between the flat esses and the uphill esses - both sections of connected transitional turns that are generally considered one-car wide. I have more laps at VIR than any other track I drive - about 8 years worth. I have gone two wide through the uphill esses before and it is a wild ride at 100+ MPH, each car has to give enough room to co-exist, go at least 2 wheels through the dirt at the apexes, and at the end it is a loser because it is not as fast as tucking in and waiting until the top when things aren't so tight to pass.

So on a test day, this is not something to do. Last lap of a race - maybe. Fighting for a position with a car in class - maybe. On a TEST DAY? NO.

We are on track with a mix of ST cars in our class and the faster GS cars. The ST cars are generally a bit less powerful, but about 5-600# lighter on average - that means that they mix very well on track for some great racing. Similar braking ability, similar corner speeds, and the GS cars pass our ST cars on the straights where it is safer and they don't get frustrated - they just drive by. And if not, our lighter ST cars are as quick in the turns so it doesn't hold them up.

So realizing that this is a TEST DAY, I exited the flat esses with two GS cars a bit behind me. In this straight section, they can pass, but as we enter the uphill esses I am flat on the gas and even the best GS car has to lift a bit to check their speed - remember we are about the same speed in the turns.

So at the tail end of the straight, a nameless Porsche pops out with good closing speed but not in a position to make any sort of reasonable move - ie he wouldn't be beside me and certainly not in front of me by the time the track tightened up in the uphill esses. Fair enough - I do that when I am in a fast car too. Show the nose, see what happens. But if the car being overtaken doesn't slow, then I do the right thing and tuck in.

So of the two GS cars, the Porsche pulls out, the other Camaro stays put. I am watching this happen in the rearview and think I am pretty safe, this is a test day, no one in the world would try to dive bomb me into the esses. But JUST IN CASE, as we turn left into the esses I don't head to the apex - I leave room so we can go two wide and let this optimistic fellow figure out that he is in the middle of a non-productive effort.

After that, I am not really sure what happened. I turn left, but I am not so sure that WE turned left - tricky since that is where the track goes. Or maybe we did turn left and the side of my car looked like the apex to hit when turning right. Whatever happened, the Porsche was not beside me, did NOT play it any sort of safe and freaked out or whatever and hit me around the LR wheel, sending me 180, then traveling backwards at about 100MPH, where I rode for about 200', praying a lot, thinking about how bad this was going to hurt and what the chances were for some serious pain or permanent personal damage.

I was insanely lucky. The car hit the tirewall backwards, square, flattened the back up to the rear tires, continued to absorb the energy as the nose went straight up in the air, spun 180 on the tail on the ground and then landed on the other side of the wall. Pretty funny in retrospect video where I am chattering on the radio before the car lands with 1)its totaled, 2)that ...... ..... that just hit me on a TEST DAY, and 3)Dave go call RRT and get a car here to race tomorrow. All in about a 10 second span.

I get out of the car after the track is cold and it is safe to walk around (you can't just get out with other cars going 100+, looking at you, and potentially driving where they are looking). I survey the damage, hear that the other driver is OK, then spend about the next 15 minutes lurking around the Porsche in anticipation of a conversation with any reasonable explanation of what happened. I didn't get it.

Sooooo - test day down, car down. Dave called the RRT guys who weren't running their car this weekend and we strike a deal - car to arrive at 6AM. Our guys put in a Herculean effort to get the car teched, swapped over to our car number so we can score points in it for the weekend, and get it on track by 8:40AM.

Enter Round 2 of my fun weekend as I start my morning session to feel out the temporary #80 on loan from the RRT Collection. It isn't uncommon for us to have some fun on the team. Bill Heumann donated a bottle of Satan's Blood or some similarly-named substance that is 10% hot sauce and 90% death in a bottle. This was last year and it travels in the truck for the off nights if someone wants to play the "how much can you eat" game. And over the year of use, a little of this stuff has apparently gotten on the outside of the bottle. Enough so that at this point, when you touch the bottle you had better remember it and not touch anything else personal and of value for the next couple of days, lest a strong burning feeling wash over that part of your body - very similar to the feeling currently in my ears.

As my ears get hotter, I get hotter. Joke gone wrong. Not funny. Hot sauce on the earbuds - really??? I struggle through some laps. Its getting hotter and hotter. Another car has a similar fate to ours of yesterday, black flag brings all the cars into the pits at about the right time - my ears are on fire. I am going to find someone to kill... As I sit in the pits, we talk about setup and make some changes to get the car more under us. Whew - my ears are getting better! So I spend most of my 10 minutes in the pits thinking who is the culprit. We go back out at the tail end of the session to feel out the changes and the heat on the earial area comes on again, strong.

I get out of the car, we have a direction on what we want to do to make it work, time to diagnose my main issue of ear pain. Sitting in the trailer the most sore ear is starting to have some wetness (goo, so I will spare the rest of the details). Anyway, I decide that this was a damaged ear form yesterday's wreck - banging my head around in the seat's side ears jostled my earbuds in the inner ear and tore the skin - or I tore it pulling them out. So I go off to get some neosporine with pain relief to solve the issue.

Session 2, I start again to get a quick read on our car work before handing the car over to Dave. I can hardly hear anything because of static in the radios, but whatever - quick in and out. Only this time, the ear heat starts immediately, and the right one is INSANE. Our engineer Wayne asks me how the car is doing. I think I say "ear, ear". I am going through the yesterday referenced uphill esses at 120MPH, one hand on the steering wheel guiding the car, the other wrapped around my helmet chinpiece pulling it away from my right ear because relieving the pressure seems to make the pain momentarily bearable. I get into the pitlane, stall the car, start a couple of sentences and stop because I can't focus on anything but my ears, and bail out of the car. I scramble to get my helmet off - WHEW!!!

Dave gets in the car, does a few laps and we are content enough. At the end of the session, we need to do a practice driver change in the new car - simulated race stop. Dave flies into the pits, stops, gets out, I get in, strap the belts hook up the radio, and I am off - after I am released by my car chief Josh. Mouth moving, no words. At this point, the radios are so bad I can't hear anything - and I could only deal with putting my left earbud in. I get a visual waive-off and head to our transporter with the car - session over. About halfway there, my left ear which was previously the minor irritation is now heating up. WHAT IS GOING ON???

The drivers download after every session - first talking to each other, then Wayne to go over the car issues and how we are going to make them better. After this, and some complaints from me on the whole ear situation, Dave pipes up. This was his first time in the new car - and the scoundrel with the hotsauce apparently got him too! And then we think - radio issue, earbud issue - really? Does a speaker get hot? It would take a whole lot of energy to make it happen. We hook up my helmet to the car, turn on the radio, start to talk to activate the speaker and in a few minutes it is almost too hot to touch.

BINGO. No hot sauce. No prank. The stupid wiring harness has literally taken my earbud speaker, turned it into a little micro-heater, and it is literally burning the insides of our ears! And with the limited schedule and time we had in the cars, there was no time to take off a helmet, test, play around and decide. Besides with years and years of experience I (and anyone else I have asked) have never heard of this happening. But it is my lucky weekend, so it all falls in line.

Qualifying at 5:25. Dave gets in our car, lays down slowish lap after slowish lap. After he gets out he tells me how he has almost died several times accomplishing this utterly unimpressive result. Now that is not a dig on Dave - he is an awesome co-driver and he puts down the laps in qualifying and is rock solid. Last race at Barber he put it on the pole. So if he can't do it, I believe him. We have a theory, based on running our club enduro car and it all makes sense - not enough rear swaybar, which is also the only setup difference with the #81 car. Not sure if it will get us to the front, but it is the plan we have and the only one, so it is the one we will go with.

Bill and Seth have been performing solidly and have a good chance in tomorrow's race. I am hoping after our changes tomorrow we will be on the same page - time will tell.

What a weekend so far and it isn't even Saturday. Its good to be back to our home track...

Barber Wrap-Up - David White

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 17:26:00 +0000

Race day activities started with an autograph session, quick driver's meeting, and lunch followed by a few hours of waiting around. As lazy as I am, I really don't like to wait around before a race.

The pre-race procedure was different for this race because of the short time between the Rolex race and our race. That's the third different pre-race/grid procedure in three races. Once we got to our spots on grid, the "where do I go? what do I do?" worries were behind us and I could actually relax for a few minutes.

After two pace/formation laps, it was time for me to lead the ST field to the green for the first time. Set the pace, wait for it, wait for it, green flag! Whew, I made it through the start and I'm still in the lead. Before we're able to complete our first lap, the first of many full course cautions comes out. That means a few more laps behind the pace car before we get to give it another shot. The green flag flies again and we almost make it a full lap this time before the yellow comes out...again. Fortunately, after our second restart, we had a nice long, caution free run before another full course yellow came out mid race and Bill and I both pitted to hand the cars over to James and Seth. There were more cautions (shocker!) mixed in with some green flag racing and James and Seth were able to bring the BimmerWorld/GearWrench cars home in 5th and 6th place with only a few scratches on them!

Some observations:
-It was rough out there, especially for the GS class. It seemed like every GS car I saw after the race had a good bit of damage.
-The track was slow, much slower than it was in qualifying. I think the warm afternoon temperatures and all of the rubber from the Rolex race really hurt lap times.
-Our cars are heavy (but we already knew that). It was really tough to maintain a decently fast pace in our cars without destroying the tires.
-One of the RSR Mini's caught on fire several times in the pits. Very scary/wild scene and hopefully no one was injured.
-The BimmerWorld crew is amazing! They didn't miss a beat all week/weekend and they nailed the pits stops once again.

Next up is Virginia International Raceway, BimmerWorld's home track! I think everyone on the team has been looking forward to this race all year...I know I have!

-David White

Sweet Home Alabama 2 - Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:02:00 +0000

BimmerWorld Racing wrapped up round three of the Grand Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Series with two more top ten finishes. The race was pretty exciting for the drivers and crew alike.

We knew we would need to be at the top of our game to do well on the tight technical Barber Motorsports Park road course. Our cars are the heaviest in the field (by up to 500 lbs) and as hard and often as we try, the laws of physics are tough to bend.

The green dropped at 3:50 with Dave on pole and me at P13. The first major incident happened at the entrance to T7 on the first lap. One of the Kias got into one of the RSR Minis and the result was that the Mini was out of action and left a fair amount of debris in the track. That full course yellow was followed almost immediately by another. After about 10 minutes we went green again and had good racing for about 40 minutes. I managed to work #81 up to P8 while Dave was P2 holding a large gap over most of the field except for a Mazda that eventually took the checkered flag.

I had some great close racing for my entire stint and was really pleased to be running with a top 10 pace. With Seth's coaching, help from James and Dave, the support of the crew, and lots of practice, I had my best performance in the series to date in both qualifying and race. I am really pleased and looking forward to the next race.

Around the 1 hour mark there was an incident that caused another FCY and we needed to pit both BWR cars at the same time. The crew did a fantastic job getting us turned around and back on the track. Seth did his usual magic winning back spots lost in the pit stop and then carving through the front runners. His carving was slowed a little bit since Barber is a fairly tough track for passing and it often takes 2-3 laps of set up to execute a pass. The bigger problem though, was that a fair amount of the last hour of racing was spent under FCY, including the last 7 minutes or so.

In the end, for James and Seth it wasn't that we didn't have the speed, it was simply that the race ended too soon. Congratulations to Dave and James for their 5th place finish! Seth and I finished up just behind, in 6th.

In addition to the challenge for the crew to turn two cars around as fast as possible in one stop, they got to witness (feel the heat) from a pretty serious fire in pits just a few down from us. The #198 RSR Mini was driven into the pits on fire (with BJ Zacharias at the wheel). Crew members from RSR and several adjoining teams doused the fire with their bottles....... only to have it flare up with a loud "thump" and big flames. They attacked it again, backed off, and it loudly flared again. Just about the time I was thinking about where to hide, the safety guys got everyone out of the way and got a real fire truck into action which finally won the battle. BJ was unscathed and glad to be alive! I don't think the car was so lucky.

We are looking forward to the next race at VIR in two weeks. BimmerWorld Racing is in second place in the team standings with 1/3 of the season behind us. We are well positioned and on target with the strategy we laid out at the beginning of the season..... not that we pay any attention to that kind of thing!

Quick update from Barber - more practice and qualifying - David White

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 04:02:00 +0000

Thursday morning started out with thunderstorms and heavy downpours all the way up to around 11am. Fortunately we weren't scheduled to hit the track until 1pm and by then, the track was mostly dry. We picked up where we had left off on Wednesday and continued getting the cars dialed in and the BimmerWorld crew did some more pit stop practice. The crew continues to amaze me with the speed of the pit stops!

Photo courtesy of Curtis Creager of Creager Images

Friday consisted of one last (short) practice session followed by qualifying in the morning. The practice session was black flagged a few times but our drivers were still able to get in some good laps. Between sessions we all went through our usual data analysis routine and I found a few places that I could pick up some speed. In qualifying I was able to put together a nice lap on fresh tires and put the #80 car on pole for Saturday's race. Bill put the #81 car in 13th place on the grid giving the BimmerWorld/GearWrench team it's best starting positions of the year!

As a side note, we got to watch some of the Indy Car practice Friday afternoon and those cars are pretty amazing.

Saturday is going to be a busy (and fun!) day for the team and our race starts at 4pm CDT.

Sweet Home Alabama- Well at least it isn't a Jimmy Buffet Song! - Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:17:00 +0000

We have been having a pretty good run so far here at Barber.

Dave got P1 and I got P13. For both of us, our fastest lap times here at Barber and our best qualifying positions in the series.

The celebration back at the trailer after Dave got pole and Bill got P13.

(Actually Wayne's friend Amy, who is apparently a stunt jump roper.)

I struggled to find decent lap times here, but with Seth's excellent coaching and patience (lots of patience!) I have gotten faster all weekend. The biggest adjustment in racing at this level for me is that it simply isn't good enough to be fast. All of the drivers here are fast. Really fast. 10/10'ths fast. For most of this crowd, driving their car at 100% of it's traction through every turn is not an exercises in testicular fortitude,......... it's just what they do. When I back out of the throttle 10 feet earlier or take 10 feet more of track before I am back to full throttle it is enough to put me a second or two behind the competition. It is a tough crowd!

At any rate, I am really pleased with my progress and where we are starting the race in #81.

The racing doesn't start until about 4PM CDT tomorrow so we have lots of time to kill. I have even washed Lynn's car out of boredom.
http://www.seththomas.net/blog/2010/04/09/lucky-number-13/

Barber - karting and testing - David White

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:49:00 +0000

Since we are sharing the weekend with the Indy cars, our schedule consists of several half days at the track. We should have a lot more down time than usual this week/weekend so I'm going to attempt (heavy emphasis on attempt) to update the blog throughout the event.

Tuesday - James, Chas, and I met in Charlotte to ride to Alabama together and we stopped off in Atlanta on the way down to sneak in a few hours of karting. We met up with Wayne (our engineer) and Seth at the kart track which is in a huge warehouse and is the longest indoor kart track I've ever driven on. The track is slick with a nice variety of corners which makes it an excellent learning tool. Wayne has roughly 3 billion laps there so he knows what it takes to be fast (smooth inputs and patience) which directly translates to our CTSCC cars. If you've ever karted with the BimmerWorld guys, you know that either somebody will leave with injuries or the group will get kicked off the track (or both). Surprisingly, we played (mostly) nice and there were no major injuries to report.

Wednesday: Promoter Test Day - Wednesday consisted of about 3 hours of track time crammed in to the afternoon (ie. very busy afternoon). Bill and I started the cars in the first session and ran them until the fuel light came on. The team practiced full speed pit stops and driver changes when we came in. The rest of the first session and most of the second session was spent trying some setup changes and getting the cars dialed in. During the second session, our #80 car developed a vibration but James and I were both able to get some good laps in. The 3rd session was immediately following the second session so James and I skipped it while the the crew diagnosed and repaired the issue. Although short, Wednesday was a very productive day.

I woke up to heavy thunder this morning (Thursday) with rain forecasted for most of the day. Although it is supposed to be dry the rest of the week, the wet conditions should provide a valuable testing opportunity for future races.

Join BimmerWorld and GRAND-AM at VIR April 23-25 – Special Ticket Offer

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:45:00 +0000

The Continental Tire Challenge is coming to our home track at VIR the weekend of April 23-25, so we called our friends at the track office to work out a deal for our friends and customers. All the GRAND-AM races are on Saturday April 24, but the entire weekend is full of racing activities.

To purchase tickets with our discounted group code, go to http://www.virnow.com/. Saturday only tickets are $20 (code GABWJ10) and the full 3-day pass is $30 (code GABW10). We race at 3:30PM on Saturday – stop by and see us before or after the race!

Back to Florida... - David White

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:43:00 +0000

So it's back to Florida for the third time in 3 months (rough, I know) and this time we were in Miami for round 2 of the CTSCC. Homestead Miami Speedway is a banked oval with a road course in the infield. Like Daytona, only smaller. The oval is smaller, the banking is not as steep, and the infield portion is much tighter than Daytona.

After hearing warnings of how cold it was from friends in Miami, we had beautiful weather all weekend. Much nicer than what we had been dealing with in NC and VA the last few months.

Thursday was a promoter test day which consisted of the team unloading and setting up in the morning and then we were on track for a few hours in the afternoon to dial the cars and drivers in. Even if everything goes smoothly, this makes for a hectic/busy day for the team. In our second session, I recall a GS Porsche (very loud car) passing me and once it pulled away, I was still hearing a loud car and the note seemed to change with the revs of my engine...weird. I discussed the issue with the team and brought the car back to the pits. I had somehow managed to blow a hole in the exhaust near one of the oxygen sensors. With the limited time between sessions and the amount of work required to fix the problem, James and I had to skip the final session. We formed a game plan for the practice and qualifying sessions on Friday.

We hit the ground running Friday morning with two practice sessions before lunch. I focused on a few areas of the track that needed some attention and I was pleased with the results. The BimmerWorld crew had the cars dialed in and we were ready for qualifying later in the day. Bill and I decided to go out at the back of the pack for qualifying and I was able to put together a few clean laps to put the car in 11th place on the ST grid.

Saturday consisted of a final morning practice before the race which was spent doing a few laps and practicing pit stop/driver changes. The BimmerWorld crew consistently nails the pit stops and with James and I doing some driver change practice a few weeks earlier, everything went as planned.

We had the usual pre-race "fan walk" but the grid procedure was different than the one we used in Daytona. There was a bit of a mix up about the procedure and several cars ended up starting the race from pit lane including both of our cars and the APR VW's.

Once the race started, we had our work cut out for us but it was definitely an exciting ride! This race had fewer cautions than we expected and I was able to work my way from 31st back to 10th or 11th during my stint. During the second caution, there was confusion among the officials which led to me losing some spots during the wave-bys for the ST cars. We pitted during that caution which lessened the impact but it was still very frustrating and confusing for the team. After a beautifully executed pit stop, James was underway. He was steadily picking up spots until more confusion by the officials during a caution near the end of the race hurt us again. James was running 7th or 8th when the officials ordered our #80 to get in front of the #25 (the lead ST car). James and the team repeatedly questioned this but the officials were adamant that we "make it happen". So James reluctantly went to the front before the green flag flew. About a lap later, we were told that the #80 had to go back to where it was during the caution causing James to miss several laps of racing for position with the 5th and 6th place cars.

Our 7th place finish wasn't bad considering the snafus during the caution periods and was a big improvement over our Daytona finish. Bill and Seth had another great race and finished in 4th in the #81 car, awesome work guys! Overall it was another very strong showing for the BimmerWorld/GearWrench Team and I expect that to continue throughout the remainder of the season.

I think Bill covered the Jimmy Buffett issue quite nicely in his post, so all i'll say is that I'd be happy to never hear another Buffett song again...ever.

Next up - Round 3 at Barber Motorsports Park...stay tuned!

(photos courtesy of Curtis Creager of CreagerImages)

Homestead Recap (or How I learned to Hate Jimmy Buffet Music) - Bill Heumann

noreply@blogger.com (Bill Heumann) — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:11:00 +0000

It seems like race weekends are defined by all the weird stuff that happens. Kind of like a family vacation,.... only doubly so.

Seth and I had prepared for the race by joining Chin Motorsports for a two day event a couple of weeks ago. Chin runs a great event with lots of track time. Mark and Maria treated us like royalty and arranged for our run group to get a session on the pro course (less infield but includes Nascar #3-#4) for one session on Sunday. We got tons of track time in my IP race car with lots of support from Randy Mueller of Epic Motorsport. This included a major engine overhaul (head gasket and harmonic balancer) Saturday night so we could run on Sunday. It's a true friend that will stay up all night so that someone else gets to drive. Especially since he gave up a Bahamas trip to do it! Thanks Randy!The result was that Seth got me to where I was very comfortable and fast on the track and had started working on some technique improvements that are costing me time.

So fast forward to this race weekend. We had a promoter test day starting at 1 PM on Thursday. My only real job was to get the feel for the car since I was already pretty comfortable with the track. The lack of aero and running on our series spec Continental enduro tires verses Hankooks can sure take one's bravado away! At any rate I put down some decent times and was getting more and more comfortable with the BimmerWorld/GearWrench E90.

On Friday we had two practice sessions then a 15 minute qualifying session at 5:05. Dave and I decided to go out at the tail of the pack for qualifying, get a nice gap, then do our fliers. Dave went out a little in front of me, due to me being held up to be scolded by a grid official. I really had no idea what my infraction was at the time because the guy was yelling at me through my helmet, earbuds and engine noise. So I go out at the very tail and allow what I thought was a big enough gap (about 200 yards) to the two cars in front of me. Despite this being a single class, that wasn't enough of a gap and I caught them by T3. I made the mistake of backing off to build another gap for the next lap instead of making the best I could of out of that lap. On the next flier I was on a good lap for me through T5 (T1-T4 were usually my weakest parts) but when I hit the brake zone for T6 all hell broke lose. The car had an electrical short which killed ALL power. I locked up the brakes and spun to a stop in the middle of T6 facing oncoming traffic. For about 5 minutes I fiddled with various combinations of master switch, ignition, start button, etc. while watching cars come at me under waiving yellow, until blessedly, I got power again and got the car started. I got one lap on flat spotted tires before the session ended so I qualified pretty poorly (P28). Dave did an awesome job qualifying P10 with what would be one of the fastest lap times we would get out of the cars all weekend.

The electrical short was diagnosed as a broken wire hidden by shrink tube in the right rear quarter of the car (coincidentally, the corner I crushed in my test day mishap at Daytona).

Morning practice on race day went well and we were ready to go. Due to a misunderstanding of the schedule we missed gridding our cars properly so both Dave and I had to start from the back of the field. This wasn't too much of a change for me since I had qualified so poorly but for Dave and James it was a real setback. We started working our way up through the field. Within two laps, the GS leaders had caught us and things started getting really wild with a fair amount of carnage but we continued to make our way through the field. Due to worries about a cooling issue we had been fighting in the #81 car we pitted early under a FCY and did the driver change at just over 30 minutes into the race. Seth got in and started doing his usual magic of cutting through the field. One of the many incredible things about Seth (besides of course that he is Seth Thomas!) is that he can consistently put down qualifying speed laps in the heat of racing. While everyone else in the field falls off by .5 seconds or more from their qualifying times in racing, Seth kept hitting fast lap after fast lap regardless of traffic or race conditions. When the normal pit rotations came around we were leading the race for a while, but we needed to bring to Seth in for a splash of fuel due to the early stop. We ended up in fourth just behind my friend (now SOB) BJ Zacharias in the a RSR Mini. Congratulations BJ!

Meanwhile Dave and James drove an outstanding race without error on their parts and ended up in seventh. But for a series of very bizarre race control instructions and some bad moves from competitors they would have been higher. I'll leave it to them to explain the weird stuff. All I can say is that it should be entertaining to watch Speed TV try explain it on the air.... which probably means they will keep the coverage on the GS cars while the most crazy stuff is going on.

Despite some bad luck, the team held together and came away with both cars in the top 10. In this field, that is a great accomplishment and we are all very proud and pumped for the next race at Barber. The crew did outstanding jobs on all of our pit stops which is critical to having any chance of success in this series.

Thanks to the lovely Crystal Mueller for helping the crew with various tasks but, most importantly, for arranging our food for the weekend. It was delicious and makes a big difference going into an enduro!

So why do I hate Jimmy Buffet music now?

Homestead has a paddock wide PA system that played Buffet music almost non stop from 8 AM until we escaped at around 6 PM. Now unlike some of the other team members, I didn't mind a little Buffet now and then and usually Florida is a good place for it...... but 10 hours a day? Really?

As I finally made it to my departure gate Sunday morning I realized that the most demanding toughness training that comes from pro racing isn't from the racing itself, the hours practice, or even the continual comparison of every minutia of one's driving techniques to drivers like Seth, James and Dave. It comes from the continual challenge of dealing with airports like Miami International (and driving on the streets in places like Miami). But that's a whole other story!

The big news from Homestead!

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:42:00 +0000

At least it is occupying some of our downtime. Continental Tire has started a “Fan Favorite” program Where fans (you) vote on your favorite car/team. Tell me more! OK:

• How do I vote? Text ST80 to 20123 between 12AM EST Friday (that’s late night for you kids and 6 hours before work on Friday for the kids headed to an office) and Midnight Sunday. And you can vote as many times at your fingers are feeling frisky. Beat the pros’ personal record of 58 in 2 minutes...
• What does it cost? Nothing. Well – normal text rates apply, so it actually depends on your cell plan, but nothing or next to it.
• What do I get? Our gratitude knowing that you are supporting our team for now. In the future, a chance to win free tires for your valuable minutes spent (this will be done every race). Try it out this weekend to make sure you have the process dialed in for when you are going to win something…
• Why bother with no free tires this weekend? Because we appreciate it (and because we are competitive).

Thanks for participating (because we know you all will).

Pit Stop Practice - And Damage Update... - James Clay

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:47:00 +0000

Its Tuesday, so it must be pit stop practice time... We were a little behind where we wanted to be at Daytona with our stops. The crew did an awesome job, but the driver handoff wasn't quite where we wanted it. Everything has to flow super-smoothly so that if we hit a snag, we have time for it. It is also pretty annoying/distracting to still be working on tightening belts or hooking up a helmet blower/drink tube/radio while cruising out of pit lane, so time to refine all the little procedures and program them into muscle memory.

Dave White came up to the shop, Chas (our driver helper) stayed late, we put on our coats and hoodies to make the belts more difficult, and got to work. After about 30 minutes of mostly constant swaps, we are in the game. Everything is flowing like clockwork. And who knew - getting in and out of a racecar repeatedly with full winter clothes is actually somewhat of a workout. So now fuel takes 40 sec for a full load and we are down to about 30 on a driver swap - right on!

Damage update - Turns out the #80 car took a bit of a whack at Daytona. No real surprise to anyone that saw the TV coverage, and really none to me after feeling my kidney for a few days (this is actually pretty rare with today's safety gear - even in our massive Watkins Glen wreck which is the scariest I have ever been in, I wasn't sore at all afterward). However, the extent of the damage is pretty impressive. The fuel door wasn't closing quite right and sure enough, the quarter has a wave in it now. The fuel cell cradle took a whack also and is being replaced. Most of it falls under "target of opportunity" for the next trip to the body shop - which is likely to be some time this season if I put on my fortune teller's hat. The guys in the shop are close to having everything straight and pretty again and we will be at 100% for Homestead.

That's racing... - David White

noreply@blogger.com (David White) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:26:00 +0000

First off, congrats to Bill and Seth for their 2nd place finish in round 1 of the CTSCC! Nice job guys!

After weeks of hard work by the folks at BimmerWorld and Steve Bassen (Bassen Autobody) to get the cars ready for the Daytona race, it was finally time to go racing. When I arrived at the track Wednesday afternoon, I got to see the cars in full race livery for the first time. They look awesome!

Thursday consisted of a couple of meetings, two practice sessions, and qualifying at the end of the day. The meetings were brief and to the point as usual and it was time to hit the track. We spent most of the practice time working on pit stops and making sure the cars were dialed in. It had only been a few weeks since we were testing at Daytona so it didn't take long for the BimmerWorld crew to nail down the setup. Since I'm new to this series and to pro racing, one of my main goals for practice was to get comfortable with being on track with 75+ cars from two different classes.

Qualifying in CTSCC is a 15 minute session but each class has it's own session so things are a lot less hectic on track. The car felt great and I was able to put together a few very nice laps and put the car in 3rd place on the grid. We were very optimistic about the race!

On Friday, we had a final practice session, a driver's meeting, a "fan walk" and the race in the early afternoon. We spent the practice session working on pit stops and driver changes. The team was nailing the stops and everyone was ready for the race!

The fan walk is essentially a meet and greet in the pits before the race. The cars were gridded up on pit lane and we had a chance to meet and interact with fans. Very cool for Grand-Am to do this I think.

The Race - After a couple of pace/formation laps, it was time to get down to business. My goal was to hand over the car to James mid-race in one piece and in position for a strong finish. Starting 3rd made it easier to avoid trouble at the start but mid way through the 2nd lap, we had our first full course caution. After a few laps behind the pace car, it was time to give it another shot. I think that lasted for another 2 laps before we were back behind the pace car again. The third time was the charm and we had green flag racing for a while. I got shuffled back a few spots but was able to work my way back up to 3rd or 4th before another caution period at about the mid-way point of the race. Perfect time to pit and hand the car over to James.

The crew nailed the pit stop (4 tires and fuel), then they nailed it again on the #81 car with no time between the stops. James was off to do his thing. He was running strong and working his way towards the front. After another caution period, he was running in 4th place right behind the 2nd and 3rd place cars when a competitor drove straight in to the back of him in the brake zone for turn 1. The impact sent him sideways in to the car in front of him damaging the front suspension. With 25-30 minutes to go, we were done...

A very disappointing finish to an awesome weekend. Hopefully our luck will change and we'll be at front of the pack at Homestead next month!

So much for the afterglow - James Clay

noreply@blogger.com (jamesclay) — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 22:16:00 +0000

Our team is accustomed to sprint races, but the 4 months leading up to Daytona were very much a mad, mad rush. It was almost surreal that we had round 1 of the season yesterday.
Great to be past this and let life settle out a little - 5 months until Homestead. And while that settles out, I will be thinking about what could and should have been in our race yesterday. Hoping for a lot more at Homestead and that Round 1 isn't an indication of how we will need to drive for the rest of the year.